Tag: Towns and cities

• Great Fires: Did the Towns That Burned Rebuild Bigger?

  

  I read every fire in Wikipedia’s town articles and found 102 great town fires, 63% of them in the 1600s and 1700s. Three centuries on, the towns that burned are neither clearly bigger nor richer.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Census, cities, Early modern, England, Georgian, history, industry, Natural hazards, Persistence test, population, Towns and cities, Wikipedia

• Rotten Boroughs: Where Are They Now?

  

  Before 1832 Gatton had 7 voters and two MPs while Manchester had none. I mapped all 56 boroughs the Reform Act abolished: today 25 are villages, a hamlet or an empty hill.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Britain, Census, Cornwall, elections, England, Georgian, history, Lost places, Parliament, Persistence test, population, Present day, Towns and cities

• Minted: were England’s mint towns still the big towns?

  

  Around the year 1000, every English penny named the town that struck it. I followed the 68 mint towns of Æthelred II forward to 1377, 1801 and 2021. 8 of the 10 biggest were still among England’s largest towns in 1377; Lydford, Cadbury and Torksey are villages now.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Anglo-Saxons, Census, cities, Coins and hoards, Domesday, Early medieval, England, industry, medieval, Norman Conquest, Persistence test, population, Towns and cities

• Canal Mania: Did the Canal Towns Boom, and Do They Still Lead?

  

  England’s canal towns grew about 4.0 times over between 1801 and 1861. But they were rising before the canals came, and today they are bigger, not richer.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Britain, Census, cities, England, Georgian, history, industry, Persistence test, Poverty and wealth, Present day, Towns and cities, Transport

• Ford or Bridge?

  

  Oxford waded, Cambridge built. I set every ford and bridge place-name in Britain against the 2021 census and small-area income: ford towns hold 2.6 times the people, and the typical ford place is a little richer per household too.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Britain, Census, landscape, medieval, place names, Poverty and wealth, Present day, Rivers, Towns and cities, UK